Dubai to consider geothermal energy

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) is considering utilizing geothermal energy to power desalination plants. Having led the pack on solar power development, the city of Dubai is on the chase for other sources of renewable energy it can make utilization of, for example, the oceans of the Gulf of Oman and the steam from the earth.

Dewa is asking for proposals for a feasibility study on an early-stage on delivering electrical power from geothermal energy and its utilization in desalination – expelling salt from water to make it consumable.

For the first time in U.A.E., the other focus area for the study will be to, assess the potential for tidal, ocean and wave currents as a resource for power generation.

Dubai’s Clean Energy Strategy incorporates the goal by the year 20150 is to create 75 percent of its power supply from clean energy sources.

Geothermal energy from underneath the Earth’s surface, the heat that makes hot springs, should be at temperatures of more than 200°C to be a prime contender for power generation. The UAE’s temperatures are much lower than this, making geothermal more appropriate for applications, for example, desalination as opposed to power generation, as told by experts.

Vice President for research Mr. Steve Griffiths of Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Institute, which has been considering the potential for geothermal in the UAE, said that utilizing this sort of energy for desalination was the most feasible choice, as the GCC’s resources on geothermal were appropriate for low-temperature applications, averaging around 100°C.

“It could be practical – the points of interest should be worked out, however in the event that there’s a tender for geothermal-based desalination, it’s not crazy,” Mr Griffiths said, including that the engaging quality came about because of the UAE’s endeavors to “decouple power and water systems”.

“So it could keep running as a stand-alone water desalination application, which could be cost-competitive with [other traditional approaches], for example, reverse osmosis,” he said.

The hydrocarbon-rich UAE has the favorable position that geothermal energy can be found with the same techniques for drilling that are utilized to research for oil and gas.

In any case, with regards to sea power, Mr Griffiths said that to date he had not seen anybody propose utilizing the ocean as an approach to produce power at any level of scale. “Taking into account the known data on renewable energy assets in the GCC, you most likely wouldn’t depend on this methodology for any critical measures of power,” he said.

As indicated by the European Commission, it is evaluated that 0.1 percent of the ocean waves energy could be fit for supplying the whole world’s energy needs five times over.

Be that as it may, the truth of the matter is the innovation simply is not there yet. Utilizing the ocean to produce power has been sent in just a modest number of nations including France – and to date, nothing has been demonstrated industrially viable.

Power produced from the sea only totals around 500 megawatts globally, though solar photovoltaic applications totaling more than 64,000MW are relied upon to be included for the current year alone, as per business sector investigation by GTM Research.

Regardless, intrigued consultancies will have an opportunity to investigate the choices, with proposition to be submitted to Dewa before the months over.